Saturday, March 11, 2017

(L-R) Michael Chomiak and his grandaughter, Chyrstia Freeland | Photo: Province of Alberta, ReutersPublished 9 March 2017While
Foreign Affairs Minister Chyrstia Freeland dismissed the news as
Russian propaganda, it was actually Ukrainian Canadians who unearthed
the information.To say Canada’s “star diplomat,”
Chyrstia Freeland, has skeletons in her closet, is a grave
understatement. The country’s foreign affairs minister had a Nazi
collaborator as grandfather — a fact she knew for decades, but didn't
stop her from peddling her way to a top government post.RELATED:NATO Deploys Thousands More Troops on Russian BorderAs
the revelation came to light this week, Freeland has dismissed the
facts as part of a “Russian disinformation campaign,” raising questions
among some about the prospects for Canada’s role in Ukraine. On Monday,
Canada extended its military training mission to the Eastern European
nation, supporting a government that has ties to extreme, far-right
nationalist elements and anti-Semitic militias.While
Freeland dismissed the news as Russian propaganda, it was actually
Ukrainian Canadians who unearthed the information by digging through
provincial archives in Edmonton, Alberta. Alex Boykowich and his
colleague, through their own independent research, found that Michael
Chomiak, Freeland’s maternal Ukrainian grandfather, was chief editor of a
Nazi newspaper in Krakow, Poland called Krakivski Visti, which
translate to Krakow News. In his post, Chomiak published anti-Jewish
diatribes that supported the Nazi's regime of terror that later became
known as the Holocaust.“We saw photographs of Chomiak
with Nazi officials, swastikas with Ukrainian nationalist symbols,”
Boykowich, a member of the Communist Party of Canada, told teleSUR.Chomiaks
standing behind and to the left of Emil Gassner, the head of the press
department of the Generalgouvernement (Nazi-occupied Poland). | Photo:
Province of Alberta, courtesy of Alex BoykowichHe
explained that he and his colleague became interested in Freeland after
the media gave undue attention to the rising diplomat. They began
researching about her in December 2016, before Freeland was offered post
as foreign minister in January, as Boykowich — of Ukrainian heritage —
became intrigued to learn that Freeland, too, was Ukrainian.“We
found a profile of her that said her mother was born in a camp for
displaced peoples in Germany,” Boykowich explained, adding that there
were only two reasons Ukrainians would be in Germany at that time: if
they were enslaved laborers or Nazi collaborators.Pouring through the archives’ 25 boxes on Chomiak, they discovered his bonafide links with the ethno-supremacist movement.Krakivski
Visti was established by the German Army and was supervised by Nazi
intelligence, after it was taken away from its Jewish owner Moishe
Kafner, who later died in the Belsen concentration camp in 1942. Like
many publications at that time that were seized by Nazis from their
Jewish owners, the paper functioned as a Nazi propaganda outlet.

“The
editorial boards carried out a policy of soliciting Ukrainian support
for the German cause,” the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum states about
Krakivski Visti and a similar newspaper, Lvivski Visti. “It was typical,
within these publications, to not to give any accounts of the German
genocidal policy, and largely, the editions resorted to silencing the
mass killing of Jews in Galicia. Ukrainian newspapers presented the
Jewish Question in light of the official Nazi propaganda, corollary to
the Jewish world conspiracy.”Boykowich and his
colleague surveyed files on Chomiak in the Province of Alberta's Ukraine
Archival Records, discovering details of his role as editor. The files
noted that Chomiak edited the paper first in Krakow, then in Vienna,
Austria, where he fled from Poland with his Nazi colleagues as the
Soviets advanced there.“I don’t think it’s a secret.
American officials have publicly said, and even (German Chancellor)
Angela Merkel has publicly said, that there were efforts on the Russian
side to destabilize Western democracies, and I think it shouldn’t come
as a surprise if these same efforts were used against Canada,” she said.At the conference, she evaded questions about her grandfather being a Nazi collaborator.What
perhaps is most befuddling, however, is the fact that, over the years,
Freeland has touted the narrative that her grandfather was a political
refugee from Soviet-occupied Ukraine, describing him as simply a
“journalist and lawyer” before World War II. According to a report by
Canada's The Globe and Mail, Freeland knew about her father's Nazi
connections and position at the newspaper.

Chomiak, standing farthest to the left, with Nazi officials. | Photo: Province of Alberta, courtesy of Alex BoykowichBoykowich confirmed through his archival research that Chomiak harbored the same politics even after he arrived in Canada.“He read (other Nazi papers), fascist ones that had anti-Semitic columns,” he told teleSUR.Conservatives in Canada have come to Freeland's defense, parroting her Russian propaganda line.“It
is unacceptable. It seems they are trying smear a minister with
historical detail that has probably been misrepresented,” Conservative
foreign affairs critic Peter Kent said, as reported by The Globe and
Mail. “It is unfair and it is typical of what we have seen in other
countries and it has nothing to do with her ability to represent
Canada.”RELATED:Russia Warns US Troops in Poland Are a Security ThreatUkrainian nationalists in Canada have come to her defense too, also blaming Russia for the information being revealed.“It
is the continued Russian modus operandi that they have. Fake news,
disinformation and targeting different individuals,” said Paul Grod,
president of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress, a close confidante of
Freeland, who has also made statements in the past skeptical of the
Holocaust. “It is just so outlandish when you hear some of these
allegations — whether they are directed at minister Freeland or others.”In
response to the revelations, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in
Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, denied Russian involvement, adding, “While we
cannot deny or confirm particular news stories, it’s our principled
position that Nazism and Nazi collaborators, their hateful ideology,
that took tens of millions lives, must be unanimously condemned.”For
Boykowich, the reality that the directorate of Canadian foreign policy
is supporting the armed forces of a fascist regime, should not be
disconnected from Freeland’s family’s history.“This
shows the ideological connection that carries on,” he warned. “Chomiak
supported Nazis then, and (Freeland) too is supporting Nazis in Ukraine.
The purpose of that support, from Nazi Germany, to the Cold War, to
today, is the same: imperial aggression against Russia.”http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Canadian-Foreign-Minister-Scapegoats-Russian-Hackers-for-Exposing-Nazi-Grandfather-20170309-0015.html

For
those too young to know Joseph Goebbels was the Nazi Propaganda
Minister. It is only fitting our commissar's grandfather worked for the
cause and she follows their advice to use the free tickets and salaries
to burst upon the flock.My grandfather was wounded
fighting the Nazi fascists while in the Canadian army. It's in my blood
to keep their ugly head from rising. It's in hers to set up the fourth
Reich. Who are you going to trust?